First Impressions
by Jedi Buttercup
Summary: Kaylee had a hard time taking her eyes off the pale-skinned, golden-eyed man talking to the Shepherd. Now a two-shot.
1. First Impressions

**Title**: First Impressions

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: T

**Summary**: Firefly, ST:TNG. _Even an eyeball estimate of their technology put this so-called United Federation of Planets light-years ahead of the Anglo-Sino Alliance_. 2200 words.

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.

**Spoilers**: Firefly, set post-series but pre-Serenity; general Star Trek: TNG, with a tiny reference to "Darmok".

**Notes**: For wnnb_darklord, who asked for Firefly and/or ST:TNG, with Wash and/or Data. I couldn't quite work Data in-- this is pretty Firefly-centric, and more like a prologue than a full story-- but it's as complete as I could make it for a one-shot. How _would_ Our Crew react, should their two worlds meet?

* * *

"So, opinions? Anyone?" Mal asked, staring expectantly around at his bemused crew.

Wash held his tongue as the others commented on the ungodly size of the ship their visitors had come in, the mind-blowing presence of actual _aliens_ mixed in amongst their thousand-strong crew, and the fact that-- contrary to everything the Alliance had ever taught them-- their Captain had claimed the Earth was still alive and well and teeming with lifeforms. If he'd been telling the truth about all of it-- well, once the core worlds found out, _interesting_ would be too mild a word for the public's reaction.

Wash wasn't really all that concerned about the bigger picture, though; even an eyeball estimate of their technology put this so-called United Federation of Planets light-years ahead of the Anglo-Sino Alliance. (He'd _love_ to get his hands on the helm of that beauty of a ship; he'd bet she could fly circles around _Serenity_ despite her unwieldy dimensions, no disrespect meant to his current lady). Her crew acted so _polite_ and _magnanimous_ about it, too, military uniforms and all. No matter how much they might claim to want peace, whether it was true or not, Wash wouldn't be surprised if that combination drove Parliament to shoot-- or sabotage-- first and _maybe_ consider trusting the corpses afterward. He could not imagine any outcome of the two governments meeting that wouldn't eventually result in happier times for those slipping about the border worlds.

There wasn't much the Federation could do that would be worse than the Alliance, after all. And even in a worst-case scenario? A government spanning _that_ many star systems wasn't going to have time to hunt down a few piddly little freighters in the middle of nowhere. Nor would the Alliance, once their attention was redirected outward. More chaos meant fewer agents available to hunt them down; meant more opportunities for profit, and a wider range of ports they could harbor in safely.

Still, there was going to be an adjustment period, no matter what happened. And it was always the little things-- the details everyone else overlooked-- that caused the most trouble in the long run, Wash had observed.

"This may sound petty, but-- it's their _date system_ that's really bothering me," he blurted, grasping Zoë's hand as he voiced one of those little details. "I have a hard enough time keeping track of our anniversary as it _is_, how am I supposed to remember a bunch of strange number strings instead? Might as well just throw a dart at a data slate and hope the output's relevant."

Mal snorted. His tone was serious as he replied, but Wash could see the reluctant amusement in the crinkles around his eyes. "Somehow I don't think it's their _calendar_ that'll pose the biggest challenge to treating with these people. Or didn't you catch all that _goushi_ about acquiring wealth? Or not acquiring it, as the case happens to be?"

Zoë squeezed Wash's hand, her eyebrows describing elegant arcs of disbelief. "The day _any_ government's envoy _actually_ puts the bettering of humanity over feathering his own nest is the day you bury me, sir. I don't trust any man that claims otherwise."

Inara sighed. "I hate to say it, but in my experience, you're not wrong," she said.

"You mean they'd take our money away? What the hell'd we do for a living then?" Jayne grunted. "What do _they_ do for a living? How do they ever get anything done? "

"Their 'Federation' no doubt provides," Simon said mildly, mouth set in a worried line. "And no doubt provides _more_ to those who serve it most according to its interests; the pattern is not a foreign one in human history. They would not be unlike the Alliance in that respect, actually; value is value, whether it carries a monetary assessment or not."

Wash cast his eyes in River's direction at that. Since the crew's encounter with the bounty hunter Jubal Early, she'd grown steadily saner and more uncanny at the same time. They all knew how much value the Alliance put on the skills they'd cut into her; there was no telling how Picard's Federation would react to her abilities.

Dark eyes lifted from an absent study of the table to meet his gaze. "They'll mean well," she said, a faint, wistful smile curling at the edges of her mouth. "They always do."

The hair on the back of Wash's arms stood up a little, and he shuddered. "Idealists, huh?" he said, stroking his thumb over Zoë's. "Ought to get along well with you, then, Mal," he added mildly, carefully not mentioning all the times the Captain's misplaced nobility-- not to mention Zoë's unconditional support-- had cost them, leaving _Serenity_ half-starved for fuel and luxuries.

There was a reason Wash had not piloted for either the Alliance or the Independents during the war; he might be a dreamer, but he was also a pragmatist, and the outcome of that rebellion had been obvious from the outset. The eventual outcome of Mal's one-man continuation of same was pretty obvious, too, if no one managed to talk some sense into him. If Zoë wasn't going to-- well, in the end, Wash wasn't going to manage it either, he'd come to realize. That didn't mean he had to like it, though.

"So, should we take them up on this dinner thing?" Mal pressed the question again.

"Long as they come here, 'stead of us going there," Zoë said, after a brief pause. "Don't see why not. Don't much relish the possibility of getting lost on a ship that large without our weapons, and we can't predict their behavior like we could when it was the Alliance inviting us aboard."

"True," Mal nodded. "Don't expect we can force _them_ to disarm, if they really want to take us over; there's only a handful of us to however many hundreds of _them_. I'll be sure to ask it, though, all polite-like, when I call 'em back up. River-girl?" He turned to their Reader, prompting her for further comment.

She shook her head. "_Fangxin_, Captain. They don't want to hurt us. But--" She frowned, drawing her eyebrows together slightly, staring off through the far bulkhead. "Put away Captain Harbatkin; this isn't the time for false finery. She'll _know_, and then the jackstraws might fall in another pattern."

"She'll know? Who, she?" Mal frowned back, straightening more alertly in his chair.

"She'll know?" Simon echoed, then drew a sharp breath. "River, are you saying that they have a Reader, too?"

Her gaze focused again, and after a moment's hesitation, she nodded at her brother.

"Well, now," Jayne rumbled softly. "That puts another color on this horse, entirely."

"Not necessarily," Kaylee spoke up, twining the ends of her hair around her fingers. "I mean, just 'cause they have a Reader, too, don't mean they're after ours. River says they don't mean to harm us. And how could they know?"

"River knows _she's_ here," Wash had to point out, though he always hated to burst her bubbles. "What's to say she couldn't feel _River's_ presence from further away? We have no idea how powerful she is, or whether she's had more training, or even whether Readers are as rare in their culture as they are in ours."

"But they speak our language." She frowned, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear with one grease-stained hand. "And they talk so _nice_; we all saw their conversation with the Captain. None of that 'I'm so important' _fei hua_ you always get from Alliance folk. They can't be _that_ different from us, I don't care what kind of fancy gadgets and titles they got."

"Wish I could be as optimistic as you, Kaylee," Mal said, wistfully. "But, if River's right..." He pondered a moment longer, then shook his head. "Well, it don't make no never mind, either way. Like I said, they could overpower us no problem, they took the notion into their heads. But I'll take that warning, little albatross." He glanced around at all of them again. "We invite them aboard, keep the more questionable cargo out of sight, but play it straight as we can. No fuss. They want to think we're representative of the people in this sector? We don't challenge that assumption, but we don't lie to them, neither."

Wash sighed; as far as that went, Mal was right. And put another spin on his earlier musings. "No, we just thank the good Lord we were taking the back lanes again," he commented. "The whole reason we charted this course is that there's an Alliance cruiser stationed coreward of here. What do you imagine might have happened if the _Enterprise_ had met that cruiser first, and tried their 'come in peace' speech on some purple-bellied Captain completely convinced of the righteousness of his government?"

Book leaned forward in his chair, then. The good shepherd had been still and quiet for most of the conversation; everyone knew he was growing more and more dissatisfied with his place aboard ship, just as everyone had noticed Mal's arguments with Inara growing more frequent and more acrimonious since their stop at the Heart of Gold. Both generally tried to stay out of the crew's jobs, these days. But when Book _did_ have something to say-- something not quoted from the scriptures from which he took his traveling name-- it was usually worth hearing.

"I hesitate to characterize this Picard and his crew as naïve, particularly if they have a Reader of their own," he said. "But if they _do_ have a Reader of their own on whom they habitually rely for an assessment of any given first contact, then it follows that they might be more easily fooled by strong belief in the goodness of even the most destructive of causes. I have no doubt that they can take care of their own very effectively, and the Alliance may ultimately pose them no threat. It's equally possible that they may pose no threat to the Alliance, should their appearance prove more dangerous than the reality of their weaponry. But should our meeting with them, and any subsequent meetings with Allied personnel, turn them against those less fortunate in this quadrant, no matter how briefly they are fooled...."

Zoë swallowed. "We'd stand no chance at all. None of us would; Haven's the biggest gathering we got of former Independents and smuggler-folk established out from under the Alliance heel, and they don't got but the one gun-mount in the settlement. If they came to believe we were terrorists...."

Mal blew out a breath. "We're chasin' at shadows, now. Let's just get through this dinner 'fore we run mad with panic. We take our _mei-mei_'s advice, don't lie, and see where the chips fall after."

"I trust you want me to participate, then, to impress some degree of culture on the conversation?" Inara said coolly, watching Mal with careful eyes.

"I'll want _all_ of us there," Mal said, avoiding her gaze to frown at Jayne, "'cept maybe you, if you can't keep a civil tongue."

"Hey," Jayne objected, though he didn't seem surprised at the accusation. "I can be good."

"See to it that you do," Mal told him. "We want to make a decent impression on these people."

"I think we all get the picture, Captain," Simon said with a sigh.

Well, it sounded like that was Wash's cue. "Shall I place the 'wave, then, Captain?" he asked.

River giggled, though, before Mal could answer, as though someone had just whispered a secret in her ear. "Temba, his arms open," she announced, grinning delightedly. "Jalad is waiting."

"Oh-kay," Mal said, slowly, raising his eyebrows at her. "Unless that means something _bad_, I'll just take that as my cue to go invite some folk to dinner."

River had no further comment; she just continued smiling, in a not quite creepifying way.

"Better hide the knives," Jayne commented, warily. "_She's_ the one you should be worryin' about, not me."

Book cleared his throat. "I'll get started on dinner, then," he said, rising from the table. "I was keeping a few tins of vegetables and vat-grown meat in the back of my cupboard against a particularly celebratory day; I'll see what can be done with them."

"I'll help," Inara said, pushing her teacup away as she rose gracefully to join him. "I have some packets of spice in my shuttle that aren't among the selection in the general pantry."

Mal glanced one more time around the crew, then nodded. "All right, then," he said, gesturing Wash toward the forward passage. "After you."

"_Renci de Fozu, qing baoyou women_," Wash muttered under his breath. Compared to all the other crazy things he'd seen and done since first boarding _Serenity_, dinner with another crew-- no matter how strange-- didn't even rank among the top ten most dangerous. But he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that the next few hours would completely change their lives, regardless.

It always was the little things that proved most important.

He squeezed his wife's hand one more time, then pushed his chair back and headed for the cockpit, hoping for the best.

-fin-


	2. Like Something Out of Science Fiction

**Title**: Like Something Out of Science Fiction

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: K+

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the world is not.

**Summary**: _Kaylee had a hard time taking her eyes off the pale-skinned, golden-eyed man talking to the Shepherd_. 1300 words.

**Fandom**: Post-series, pre-Serenity for Firefly; general ST:TNG

**Notes**: Sometime last year, someone asked if I would ever write Kaylee meeting Data, in First Impressions 'verse. Whoever that was: this one's for you. Title's a Wash quote from "Objects in Space".

* * *

Kaylee had a hard time taking her eyes off the pale-skinned, golden-eyed man talking to the Shepherd. Or was 'man' the right word? His friends had introduced him as a 'him', and the way those black pants and sun-yellow shirt fit sure made it _look_ like he was man-shaped underneath, but it wasn't like she'd ever met a mechanical person before. She didn't know the etiquette for such things.

She bit her lip, then glanced toward Inara, smiling at the sight of her friend sitting across the table from a dark-eyed lady with masses of wavy hair and a turquoise uniform styled like Mr. Data's. The two women were real caught up in whatever they were talking about, all elegant hand motions and bright, open smiles, as like as two peas, tea cups on the table between them. Even if Miz Troi _was_ a Reader like River thought, there weren't no way she meant _Serenity_ any harm.

The one with the forehead ridges who'd come with Miz Troi and Mr. Data and their Captain- _he_ might; he was awful fierce to look at. But for all he kept staring suspiciously at Jayne and had hardly but picked at his food over dinner, she'd noticed Zoë got along with him just fine, and Kaylee trusted Zoë's judgment of people a lot more than she did their merc's. Matter of fact, after being shot up by Reavers, Worf was a little dull for her first ever actual alien... well, either that, or he _was_ like Jayne and his bald-headed Captain had told him to be on his best behavior.

Kaylee smiled again at the thought and glanced back toward the android. Mr. Data, now; _he_ was more polite than any other guy she'd ever talked to, even Simon, and fascinating besides. She liked to fancy _Serenity_ talked to her- she had more heart than any other piece of machinery Kaylee'd ever tended- but other than that time River'd hid herself and pretended to be a haunt, the ship hadn't never had an actual voice to talk back. Just the beating heart of her, keeping them all safe and close between worlds. Mr. Data might not have a flesh and blood heart, but it was plain to see he had all the rest; her fingers _itched_ to see what he was made of.

She'd _never_ ask to peek under _his_ panels, though. That would be rude.

River looked up from where she stood next to Kaylee, then trapped a smile behind her hand and giggled. "He's a person, actual and whole," she said, in a whisper that didn't carry beyond the two of them. "Fully functional."

"You can _read_ him?" Kaylee whispered back as Mr. Data turned to answer a comment of Book's, exposing his pale, perfect profile. "His mind's that much like ours?"

River shook her head, loose strands of hair flying around her face, though she was still smiling; she sounded fascinated. "His thoughts flash like fireflies, on and off; it would burn my hands to catch them."

Meaning one of his friends had thought that? Mmm, close friends. Kaylee bit her lip again, then took a deep breath and crossed the room, brushing nervously at the grease stain on her coveralls. Hadn't been any call for her frilly dress that night, and none of the other outfits she owned was ever totally spotless. _Serenity_ was a working ship, though; so what if she didn't have a fancy uniform?

Book saw her coming and wrapped up whatever he was saying with an incline of his head; Kaylee beamed at him, then stepped up next to their visitor, tangling her fingers together to keep from reaching out and finding out more about him first hand. "So, Mr. Data. About, y'know, what we talked about at dinner. Our Radion Accelerator Core? I know she ain't a patch on y'all's engines, but she does the job. I thought you might like to see the workin's?"

"I would indeed," he said, blinking those pale, pale eyes at her. It made her want to shiver; he was the most exotic thing she'd ever seen. "You are able to access the core from inside the ship? We observed the flare of energy and the rotating motion on our approach; it seemed externally driven."

She grinned. "Sure. There's a few parts we have to service in suits, or wait 'til we're on-world, but most of her's inside where I can reach her. Only way to keep her flyin' if a part breaks out here in the Black. Ain't so much space we can afford a big fancy engineering compartment like what the Alliance have on those city-ships of theirs, but she's just the right size for us."

Data looked around then, taking in the kitchen space, the dining table where Miz Troi still sat with Inara, and the nook where the men and Zoe were gathered with a jug of the fine spirits the Captain liked to save for special occasions. "It does seem sufficient," he said, "for a spacefaring culture still driven by commerce. Is such a lifestyle common among the people of this system?"

Kaylee shrugged as she started leading him aft, walking toward the hatch to the aft passage. Mal raised an eyebrow at her, probably wondering if she needed backup; she shook her head in return, flapping her hand quellingly at him, and he settled again before their visitors took notice. "I don't know about _common_; it's like any other life, really. The Captain and Zoe and Inara didn't want to be planet bound no more; Wash went to pilot school; I've always had a way with the workin's of things; and the others... well, we've all got our reasons for bein' here. What about you? There a lot of androids in this Starfleet of yours?"

His expression didn't change, but he did look away at that. "I am afraid not," he said. "I am unique."

"Really?" Kaylee widened her eyes. There was only one of him? That made this chance to talk with him even more special. "That must be lonely."

"I do not experience loneliness as humans do," he told her, then paused, thoughtfully. "Though I do miss the presence of certain inputs- certain _people_- when they are absent."

"I know _just_ what you mean," Kaylee told him, giving in to the impulse to reach out and pat him on the arm. "_Serenity_'s never at her best when the Captain's off ship for long."

Data raised his eyebrows. "Does the ship have positronic neural circuitry, as well? I did not detect the presence of any such advanced technology when we came aboard."

Was that what made him tick, then? Kaylee had never heard of any such thing; and it must be awfully rare where he came from, too, if he was the only one of his kind. "No, she don't," she told him, thinking about what River had said about fireflies. "But just 'cause she ain't been _programmed_ for it, don't mean she don't have _feelings_. Even if they don't look much like mine. Or whatever you've got. You can't slap a label on something like that."

He was quiet a moment; then he inclined his head to her, mouth curved just slightly like he wanted to smile but wasn't sure just how to do it.

"Miss Frye," he said solemnly, "you are a very discerning woman."

Kaylee beamed. "Why thank you, Mr. Data," she said. Then she continued toward the whole reason- well, _one_ of the reasons- she'd dragged him back to her favorite space on the whole ship, and tugged him along with her. "Now, c'mon. I want to introduce you to her all proper."

And maybe, if she was lucky... they'd get to some more _personal_ introductions, later.

-x-


End file.
